| In SDNY College Humor Is
Sued For Dog Photo After BuzzFeed Said It Can
Seek Fees From Photographer
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon,
Periscope
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
May 28 – BuzzFeed Media is
being sued, rather routinely,
for using a Florida
photographer's aerial shot of
Miami's American Airlines
Arena, see below. And on May
28 into the SDNY, otherwise occupied
with Michael Avenatti, came
the case of CollegeHumor.com's
use of a Himalayan Dog photo
by photographer Sebastian
Wahlhuetter. The publication
took place in 2016, in an
article entitled "20 Random
Reddit Photos Turned Into Epid
Movie Posters." But the
lawsuit was filed in February
2019. College Humor was
ordered by SDNY Judge Lorna G.
Schofield to respond by May
20, but there is no response
in the docket as of the May 28
hearing date. The case is
19-cv-2501, Jury Trial
Demanded. Now the demand is
for $3,000 in damages, $10,000
in statutory damages, $2037.50
in attorneys' fees and $475 in
costs and, of course,
interest. This
is the SDNY.
On
May 14 Gizmodo was sued, by
photographer David McGlynn,
for using his photo of Malcoln
Abbott which ran in the New
York Post on March 13, 2019,
in a story about the Varsity
Blues scandal.
L'affaire Gizmodo has
been assigned tp
U.S. District
Court for the
Southern
District of
New York Judge Alison
J. Nathan,
who recently
presided over
SEC v. Elon
Musk. Might
her approach
to DMCA claims
be different
than fellow
SDNY Judge
Vernon
Broderick?
On May 10
BuzzFeed's lawyer argued that
under the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act they can demand
attorney's fees from the
photographer, even if they
lose, if the judgment is less
than what they have
offered. The case is Myeress
v BuzzFeed Inc,
18-cv-2365 (VSB).
The amount
BuzzFeed's offer was not said
aloud on May 10 in the SDNY courtroom
of Judge
Broderick,
known to Inner
City Press
readers for
presiding over
the UN bribery
case of Ng Lap
Seng. The UN
has also been
the venue of
an abusive
misuse of the
DMCA, in which
Inner City
Press'
publication of
a leaked copy
of a request
to the UN to
remove it
(which
ultimately
occurred and
has persisted
for 310 days
and counting)
by Reuters'
and now HRW's
representative
was blocked
from Google
Search based
on a bogus
copyright
claim, here.
We'll have
more on all
this.
The previous day
May 9 when Fuguan Lovick
appeared in court shackled to
plea guilty in the Nine Trey
Gangsta Bloods case best known
for the involvement of rapper
Tekashi 6ix 9ine a/k/a Daniel
Hernandez, it began as a
routine allocution.
But when Lovick,
also known as Fu Banga,
offered his own description of
what he did on April 21, 2018
at the Barclays Center in
Brooklyn, SDNY Paul A.
Engelmayer did not accept
it.
Lovick said that
outside the door of a boxer, a
group ran at him; he drew a
gun and fired it into the air
to make them step
back.
Judge Engelmayer
said this allocution wouldn't
do, with its implication of
self defense and failure to
mention the Nine Trey Gangsta
Blood organization. He urged
Lovick, still in chains, to
spend ten minutes with his
defense lawyer Jeffrey G.
Pittell to discuss a prepared
allocation which would jibe
with counts six and seven of
the superseding indictment to
which he was ostensibly
pleading
guilty.
Pittell, with
whom Inner City Press spoke
just outside the courtroom,
had previously filed a motion
to suppress and to dismiss. He
had an interesting argument
that the New York State crime
of menacing - trying to cause
the fear of bodily harm -
would not fit even the
superseding lesser included
charge to which Lovick was
pleading guilty. Pittell told
Inner City Press this is an
issue of first
impression.
But as Judge
Engelmayer put it when after
two breaks he accepted
Lovick's guilty plea, lawyers
can always make arguments but
it was his view that there was
no real claim of self-defense
in this case. Pittell referred
to a video of the incident but
Judge Engelmayer said he had
not seen it. Venue was also
questioned; that too was
smoothed over.
As more and more
of the initial defendants in
the overall USA v. Jones
/ Tekashi 6ix 9ine case
plead guilty, to some the
remaining question is the
pleading-out of the
defendant(s) who are NOT
affiliated with the Nine Trey
Gangsta Bloods. Inner City
Press will continue to cover
this case. For now, a bit more
on Patreon, here.
For more on this case, including
the April 30, 2019 multiple defendant discovery
conference before Judge Engelmayer, click here.
***
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Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
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